Quisling Palestinian Authority facilitates Israeli blood bath in Gaza
international |
rights, freedoms and repression |
news report
Monday January 05, 2009 15:18
by TD - Free Palestine Campaign
"The Palestinian people ... understand very well that Abbas, his clique, the Arab regimes, the US and Europe are all culpable in their slaughter" (Joseph Massad)
Following widespread anecdotal reports and some media reports of the Palestinian Authority unleashing its security goons in the West Bank to suppress the spontaneous demonstrations in support of Gaza following the Israeli attack - I experienced a smidgeon of this in Hebron last Sunday week when a uniformed PA person attempted to stop my videoing - I decided to attend yesterday's demo in Ramallah organised by Fatah and the Peoples Committees to delve further.
al-Manara Sq, Ramallah
A friend of mine who works for the Palestinian, Ramallah based, independent human rights organization, Al-Haq confirmed that the previous Friday, PA security violently suppressed the Ramallah demonstration in support of Gaza injuring 10 of the protestors in the process and with he himself prevented from filming on three separate occasions. Yesterday, despite a prior agreement that no Hamas or Fatah flags were to be flown, it was a veritable sea of yellow Fatah emblems with the one Hamas flag waver arrested.
The sorrows of Palestine are endless and deepening; even though the term of "chief Palestinian collaborator and coup leader Mahmoud Abbas ends on 9 January. Israel hopes to extend his collaborationist rule as head of the PCA (Palestinian Collaborationist Authority) it set up through the Oslo agreement in 1993" (Joseph Massad, associate professor of modern Arab politics and intellectual history at Columbia University, New York. See Related Link)
Further, it's shaping up that if Israel has its way, Abass will be Israel's chief surrogate jailer; if Tzipi Livni's recent threat is realized to denationalize and deport Palestinian citizens of Israel to the Palestinian Bantustans once Israel and the "international community" grants these West Bank prisons the status of an independent Palestinian state enclosed within the Apartheid Wall" (Massad).
In a Electronic Intifada article, Ziyaad Lunat points out that: It is no surprise that the world's super powers condone Israel's genocidal acts in Gaza. Colonization, slavery, apartheid, genocide and ethnic cleansing have been constants in western colonialist adventures. What has now reached new levels is the open, vocal and active support of Arab governments to the massacre of the Palestinian people. As the Indian sepoys once did, new collaborators have joined the chorus of voices condoning the carnage. (see link).
And more's the pity, the PA/Fatah, unelected, armed and trained under the active aegis of the US and Israel as cat's paw thugs has reached this nadir or as US general Keith Dayton put it, these thugs were taught that they "are not here to learn how to fight against the Israeli occupation," but instead to fight "the lawless elements within Palestinian society."
It is illuminating that Abass has blamed the Gaza slaughter on Hamas and the PA has never even attempted to resist Israeli orders and that not even one member of its top leadership has resigned in disgust or dismay. The PA are based in Ramallah and the PA sanctioned demo started and finished in al-Manara (The Lighthouse) Square - a cruel misnomer as its darkness the PA are leading their people into, a fact unacknowledged by their enthusiastic blinded, useful idiots yesterday.?
Caption: Video Id: DcVmUmFX6WQ Type: Youtube Video
Embedded video Youtube Video
printable version
Digg this
del.icio.us
Furl
Reddit
Technorati
Facebook
Gab
Twitter
View Comments Titles Only
save preference
Comments (20 of 20)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20Nice one Tommy. Keep the reports coming. Very much appreciated. Take care.
Israel's foreign minister Tzipi Livni raised many eyebrows when speaking to Israeli high school students this week. Her attempts to sound tough while advocating the two state solution backfired badly. Even her attempts to repair the damage continued to reveal the basic problem of racism that Zionists have when it comes to Palestinians whether under their occupation or Palestinian citizens of Israel.
"My solution for maintaining a Jewish and democratic state of Israel is to have two nation-states with certain concessions and with clear red lines," she added.
According to Livni, the national demands of the Israel's Arab citizens should end the moment a Palestinian state is established. This statement was interpreted by Palestinian citizens of Israel as an attempt to trigger their biggest nightmare- an attempt for an ethnic cleansing-type of transfer of those remaining Palestinians from their homes which are part of the Israeli state.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daoud-kuttab/livni-wants-....html
An eyewitness from Bil'in village is after confirming that, today, PA security personnel attacked and batoned Birzeit University protestors engaged in an "unauthorised" pro Gaza demo and anyone photographing or videoing it, curiously Maan News, WAFA (Palestine News Agency), the International Middle East Media Center (IMEMC) or even the Birzeit University website are not reporting this.?
Bravo TD, great report and the pithy, unapologetically rebellious tone demonstrates we at least have one reporter down there with salt and his own spine who actively despises NATO-conform self-censorship and boot-licking of any hue.
I'd be interested to know what the FATAH base in WB says or thinks about this PCA quisling pack in private/public? Surely they cannot ALL be yes-men and stooges in their own genocide by stages?
Keep it up, Tommy, and be careful down there, we need you back!
PS: Would anyone else like to chip in some cash to keep TD in situ and the reports coming?
Now that the ongoing criminal assault in Gaza is grist to the depraved appetites of some Israelis: A tower of white smoke rose from the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun after another Israeli bombardment Monday morning, and a half-dozen Israelis, perched on a dusty hilltop, gazed at the scene like armchair military strategists. Avi Pilchick took a long swig of Pepsi and propped a foot on the plastic patio chair he'd carried up the hillside to watch the fighting. "They are doing good," Pilchick, 20, said of Israeli forces battling Palestinian militants in Gaza, "but they can do more." (Shashank Bengali) http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/59013.html it brings to mind a refuge, cruelly called an asylum where: In the 18th century people used to go to Bedlam to stare at the lunatics. For a penny one could peer into their cells, view the freaks of the "show of Bethlehem" and laugh at their antics, generally of a sexual nature or violent fights. Entry was free on the first Tuesday of the month. Visitors were permitted to bring long sticks with which to poke and enrage the inmates. In 1814, there were 96,000 such visits http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedlam
Apart from filthy Zionist cravings, last night, I saw another face of Israel, where Israelis with consciences still alive came in their hundreds to Jaffa, a once thriving Palestinian town now mostly swallowed up and ingested by Tel Aviv yuppified developments, to voice their empathy with their fellow Palestinian Israelis and disavow their governments actions - yesterday morning, in the now daily protests outside the Damascus Gate leading into the Old City of Jerusalem I was much heartened by the articulate fully engaged women there.
Bil'in, the West Bank village where I was based in, according to the Lonely Planet guide is a Fatah stronghold, due to its close commuter distance to Ramallah - where the PA rules on behalf of the Israelis and US from its Green Zone, but if this is the case, it's a good harbinger of things to come as, beside a PA employed computer engineer mouthing the usual bullshit, I found scant evidence of this amongst the villagers and Palestinian activists, only deep anger and revulsion - the PA, I'm happy to report is cursed in the same breath as the Egyptians and Saudis. however, it remains to be seen whether this transmutes into open rebellion - the testing time is at hand as Abass's term of office is due to expire this Friday, 9th and the fucker is expected to cling to power.
Avi Pilchick and fellow snuff movie aficionados enjoying the schadenfreuden
Total Block : Blood, sun tan lotion and willed amnesia, Tel Aviv beach this morning.
Israeli/Palestinian demo last night in Jaffa
Protest yesterday morning at the Damascus Gate, Old city, Jerusalem.
Ground Hog Day shamefully revisited : In WW2, the Russian army halted its advance and deliberately stood idly by, its troops resting and bathing in the river Vistula, gawping and gaping as the Germans shelled and bombed the Warsaw ghetto to rubble, how the worm has turned, how Israel has become uglified and evil.?
More schadenfreude!
Please stand corrected - the Red Army stood from the side while the Germans smashed the Polish rebels - the Polish rebel of Warsaw took place AFTER the Jewish rebel in the ghetto. The Jewish rebel took place between 19/4/43 -16/5/43 - the Soviets where busy with their own troubles then.
While the Polish rebel took place (1/8/44-2/10/44) the Soviet where indeed very close, and stood at the side to let the German finish the business, since people who rebel against the Germans will be likely to rebel against the Soviets later. They did the same in Prague, by the way.
Half a dozen Israelis taking pleasure in the suffering of the Palestinian people (if that's what they're doing as distinct from merely observing) is half a dozen too many. But many tens of thousands of Gazans attended a Hamas rally on 14th December where an actor dressed as the kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was paraded to cheers and jeers from the crowd as he begged for his life in Hebrew. The 150,000 strong crowd (AP estimate) laughed and applauded as the actor fell to his knees in tears saying "I miss my Mom and Dad". Nice people.
Video clip available here. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7782378.stm
Schadenfreude, hamas style
Was anyone hurt in the Shalit enactment ?
Anyone killed? Any schools bombed ? Any internaitonal war crimes or crimes against humanity ?
No, Maureen, I don't suppose anyone was killed in the re-enactment. And,of course you're quite right - no schools were bombed either. Does that make it ok then?
Although I'm sure the Shalit family may well have been "hurt" by it.
Oh, and as for international law, last time I looked, it was a breach of the Geneva Convention to deny a prisoner contact with family and the International Red Cross. As has been the case with Gilad Shalit since his capture (inside Israel) in 2006. Or do breaches of international law only count when it's Israel (or the United States) that commit the breach?
Well I am glad that you recognise Israel's detainment of thousands of Palestinian's in its jails without access to the outside world as a crime.
We wont mention the ongoing torture here, theres too much on the table as it is.
But you may not be right to say that Hamas is similarly responsible here, as they are trying to maintain security in a besieged warzone with no independent access to the outside world at all. You see, Hamas are also similtaneously prisoners of war.
Ron, I stand corrected in dunces corner.
Contrarian! In your whataboutery, you may take on board the issue of the "Nice people" of the Public Information unit in the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, busing Israeli children to IDF artillery bases in 2006, giving them felt pens and telling them to sign 155 mm cluster bomb rounds containing US supplied M-24, M-77 bomblets, before being fired into South Lebanon to kill and maim fellow school children. Indulging in such feeble point scoring, you entirely miss my point - as Saree Makdisi puts in a different context: "The brute fact of the matter is that, as long as their air force is killing an entirely defenseless people, the Israeli public and media do cheer them on. As soon as they start paying any kind of price—no matter how grotesquely out of proportion to the level of damage their soldiers are inflicting on unarmed and innocent people—their bloodlust quickly cools."
What do you want with this picture? These are girls from Quiriat Shmona, a city that well suffered from Hizballa's (and Fatah, before that) Katyushas.
They wrote there "To Hizballa with love", not "to the citizens of Lebanon - we are glad that you suffer". As if Palestinians don't do that. They do it very well, and much more and worse. There are plenty of pictures of happy Palestinians after suicide bombers killed Israeli civilians. There are also lots pictures showing Palestinians celebrating the 9/11 events.
Well, Israel allows the Palestinians imprisoned in its Jails family visits and packages though the Red Cross. Hamas doesn't allow it. It didn't allows a single visit of the Red Cross to Gilad Shalit since his capture.
"security in a besieged warzone" is a wretched excuse, come on. Red Cross is there every now and then. Food supply gets there, and I shouldn't ask you where did they get all these rockets - no, Grad missiles are not home-made.
Here you have some.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTYoV-_GlNs
and here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMOZvbYJMvU&feature=related
This as well -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXNRfcyuTCA
It isn't from 911, but from the start of the 2nd intifada, where 2 reservist IDF soldiers made there was mistakenly into Ramalla, arrested at the entrance to the city by the Palestinian police, and then lynched at the Police station.
Happy?
There's nothing unique about soldiers being lynched when they end up in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Exactly the same thing happened to 2 SAS squaddies in Belfast and not a Hamas activist in sight .
However distasteful these incidents pale into insignificance when compared with the state-sponsored slaughter perpetrated by the IDF and/or its allies in Sabra and Shatilla, Qana, the school in Gaza yesterday and the killing of 70 members of the same extended family in Gaza on Monday by the IDF.
The IDF also systematically make the same "mistakes" of bombing refugees in UN facilities in Lebanon and the occupied territories.
To any normal mortal it would appear to be IDF policy.
Hey we can kill more of them and save on munitions when they group together in UN bases, schools etc.
Like shooting fish in a barrel.
War is horrible, and unfortunately the Israelis as the colonial power and ethnic cleanser in chief seem to have an insatiable appetite for it and the Palestinians having been on the receiving end do likewise.
As Shakespeare said in Macbeth "that we but teach bloody instructions, which, being taught, return to plague the inventor.”
Learn to treat the Palestinians with respect, give them dignity and the means to make a living and you might get somewhere.
Otherwise shut up and take your medicine!
TD,
Can I remind you that it was your good self who opened up the issue of schadenfreude and attributed it to the Israelis. So obviously, you regard it as fair comment. Yet when I point out an even more glaring example of this behaviour by 150,000 Gazans this is mere "whataboutery" and "feeble point scoring." [Puzzled]Perhaps only examples of Israeli bad behaviour are fair comment. All Palestinian bad behaviour, breaches of international law and war crimes (eg deliberate targeting of civilians) can be excused and forgiven, as Maureen does so well above. [/Puzzled]
By the way, I deplore the use of Israeli children to write messages on the artillery shells. That is simply grotesque and appalling.
Perhaps we could agree that the conflict is slightly more complex than Israelis 100% wrong and Palestinians 100% right?
Not gloating, certainly not, but a bit on the nice people of Hamas:
http://iht.com/articles/2008/12/29/mideast/gaza.php
The killing of spies and collaborators with the enemy is standard practice in all wars, including guerrilla wars.
The same thing happened regularly in Ireland for the duration of our liberation struggle against our colonial occupiers.
The backdrop to the use of collaborators and their entrapment by the Israelis is altogether more interesting:
"Recent reports in the Israeli media, for example, suggest that the 2005 withdrawal from Gaza, far from reducing the opportunities for collaboration, may actually have increased them. The current siege of the Strip – in which Israel effectively governs all movement in and out of Gaza – has provided an ideal point of leverage for encouraging collusion.
Masterminding this strategy is the Israeli secret police, the Shin Bet, which has recently turned its attention to sick Gazans and their relatives who need to leave the Strip. With hospitals and medicines in short supply, some patients have little hope of recovery without treatment abroad or in Israel.
According to the Israeli branch of Physicians for Human Rights, the Shin Bet is exploiting the distress of these families to pressure them to agree to collaborate in return for an exit permit.
Last month, the group released details of 32 cases in which sick Gazans admitted they were denied permits after refusing to become informants."
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/cook.php?articleid=13450
Ed,
You need to educate yourself about the conditions in Israelidungeons. Its medieval. There are no Human rights for Palestinians in Israel Not even Kids who are also tortured.
-- " The plight of Palestinian children arrested by the Israeli army has long been one of the neglected aspects of Israeli occupation, involving some 600 minors a year since the outbreak of the second Intifada in September 2000. Nearly all are held without access to legal support during questioning, often compelled to sign confessions in Hebrew, a language they don't understand, while subjected to intimidation and mistreatment as a matter of routine course. It starts with the arrest itself, which can take place during night-time incursions or mass arrest campaigns, or alternatively at the military checkpoints which have played such a part in curtailing the economic and social life of the West Bank. After a night or two behind bars, some minors are released without charge, while the unfortunate ones, around 300 a year, start their passage through the Israeli military justice system which stands as the rule of law in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. This system allows no special provisions for minors, despite the fact that Israel is a signatory of numerous international treaties which demand due consideration for age in the legal process, not least of which is the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Those considerations are, by contrast, applied to Israeli minors, including those living cheek by jowl with the Palestinians in illegal West Bank settlements. Life doesn't improve on the inside, with Palestinian children routinely reporting torture or mistreatment.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article4856.shtml